


Pillow Talk

by acaramelmacchiato



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, disinterested sex, sex is the cover story, they kill snoke au, they're both a little interested though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-05-29 15:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6382039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren and General Hux decide that their odds of working together against Snoke are better than their odds of finding Luke Skywalker. They know that Snoke won't spy on Kylo during sex, so they only have a narrow window of opportunity to get their plotting done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> kinkmeme fill, all honor to the requester for [this scorcher of a prompt:](https://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/3467.html?thread=6880907#cmt6880907)
> 
> Kylo and Hux have decided to work together against Snoke, for whatever reasons you like. Plotting against someone who can read minds is not an easy thing, but luckily they know that Snoke finds sex (or at least m/m sex, maybe) distasteful and so doesn't rifle through those memories very thoroughly. 
> 
> Conclusion: Kylo and Hux must do all their plotting while having sex.

Supreme Leader Snoke was arrested by a cadre of First Order special stormtroopers. Less than an hour later, aboard a secure transport, he was dead.

This information was relayed to General Hux on a secure audio channel, and he listened with cool attention, removing his fingers from Kylo Ren’s ass only after he disconnected the call.

“That’s it, then,” said Hux, wiping his fingers on the sheets. “It’s done. We can stop now, get your clothes.”

Kylo closed his eyes, feeling a wound in his mind where his teacher had been. “Supreme Leader Snoke is dead.”

“I’m not well-versed in the Force,” said Hux, “but I truly am surprised that you still have an erection.”

“You know nothing of the dark side.”

“Never mind, it’s your problem now,” said Hux. “Get out. I’ll call a meeting in an hour. By the way, Ren, this deck houses officers; please don’t masturbate in the halls.”

 

* * *

_Two months ago..._

 

 

The first day that Kylo Ren saw General Hux leaving an audience with Supreme Leader Snoke, he stopped in his tracks, betrayed that Snoke had anything to say to Hux, who was a dull functionary, and whom Kylo hated.

“General,” he said, before he got too far. There was something in his mind that made him reluctant to meet Kylo’s eyes. “You have spoken with the Supreme Leader alone?”

“I had not expected that I would have to remind you that I am in command of this project.”

“I did not know Supreme Leader Snoke took such a personal interest in … administrative minutiae.”

Hux met his eyes. “He doesn’t. And if you’re on your way in, you’ve kept him waiting.”

Inside the auditorium, Kylo knelt before the Supreme Leader, helmet in his arm, and would have done more.

“Let me deal with the staff on this base, Supreme Leader,” he said, sure that Hux's guarded secret was simple disloyalty.

“No,” said Snoke. “General Hux is a valuable subordinate. And I will not take this jealousy from you.”

“You haven’t taken anything,” said Kylo. “I’m your faithful disciple, General Hux is not.”

“Then show your faith to me and tell me what you know of Luke Skywalker.”

“Luke Skywalker betrayed Darth Vader,” said Kylo, surprised by the question. “He was not worth what he breathed. What is there to know?”

“Let me be more specific,” said Snoke. “Do you know where he is?”

“If he is not dead he is as good as that. Where isn’t important. He’s broken. He doesn’t affect our plans.”

Snoke leaned forward. “I will decide what is material. And when I deign, I will teach it to you. Luke Skywalker is the last of the Jedi, and he can unmake every step of progress we have taken, every small victory we have won on the path of this great endeavor.”

Kylo Ren bowed his head. “Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“We must find him,” said Snoke. “At any cost."

 

* * *

 

Kylo went to see General Hux in his office, barricaded behind more secretaries than there were Knights of Ren at their fullest strength. Hux’s office staff froze when they saw Kylo coming, but no one made a move to stop him.

“If you’ve come to talk to me about Luke Skywalker, I’m sorry but you’ve wasted a trip. I already know,” said General Hux. And then: “Can’t you read minds?”

“I can, but I don’t care about yours. I have come to tell you just how important to Supreme Leader Snoke this search is,” said Kylo. “It’s our highest priority. I will oversee it myself, and I will have every resource of the Starkiller Base, the _Finalizer_ , and your intelligence staff at my disposal.”  

“The resources of the Starkiller Base are largely water purification, unless you can find Skywalker by destroying a planet. What you are describing is a manhunt, which is a military operation. I suggest you leave it to my authority. As for the every resource of the _Finalizer_ , you will have to speak with Captain Phasma.”

“Don’t make suggestions,” said Kylo. “I have many ways of finding him. More ways than you could comprehend.”

“And I have little interest in comprehending them,” said General Hux. “Come see me if you run into any snags.”

Kylo Ren went to his room to meditate. He hoped to reach a state where he could listen discerningly to the Force. Skywalker was devastated when Kylo turned away, and would still feel a unique despair, something a talented manipulator of the dark side could find. And if he could find Skywalker, and he could bring him to Snoke and be free of him.

He started to clear his mind. It didn’t work.

General Hux had a secret. It was probably as mundane and overscrupulous as the rest of him. Hux made Kylo ashamed of how badly the Empire had declined near the end, that this pinched, shallow-chested lackey was what remained of its great political class.

He tried to direct his mind back to emptiness, and it directed itself back to the vindictive contemplation of his rival. Kylo knew human nature from long experience. He knew that men like General Hux, inside their own minds, were each and every one of them disgusting. It was very likely that he was some kind of predictable pervert, requiring the smell of a stormtrooper locker room or to be beaten with a clipboard to perform.

It had always been like this.

Kylo was extremely powerful in the Force, but weak in concentration and patience. He had been too gently raised. He shook his head, and tried to put his anger in its proper place by repeating a mantra taught to him by Snoke.

 

* * *

 

“Tell me how the search for Luke Skywalker is developing,” said Supreme Leader Snoke, though he must have known that his apprentice had nothing to report. Over the course of the week Kylo had sifted through entire systems of minds, looking for a hint of Skywalker, and he had found nothing.

Kylo bent his head in contrition. Next to him, Hux made an exasperated noise.

“I know this,” said Kylo. “If he’s alive, he’s somewhere so remote it doesn’t matter. I have not heard or seen him.”

Dust glittered in the air lit by the projection of the Supreme Leader, puffing near his mouth like an exhaled breath. Kylo was in awe of him. Snoke, at times, personified the extreme majesty of the dark side in a way Lord Vader must have. Kylo cast his eyes down to the floor and drew the long breath he would need to explain his failure. Then General Hux interrupted him:

“The military search is progressing more fruitfully,” said Hux, and looked at Kylo while he said it. “Although less mystically. The Empire had extensively recorded Skywalker’s associations, travel, and activity as a result of his ascribed status. Over the next three weeks we will use this information to find concentrations of his associates. We will detain them, extract information about his potential locations, and then find him. As I told Ren last week, it is a simple process.”

Kylo heard the leather of his gloves creak as he made his hands into fists.

“I am pleased to hear it, General,” said Snoke. To Kylo he said nothing.

Hux nodded. “Thank you, Supreme Leader, I will continue to prioritize this search, however, I must urgently report that we are close to achieving three of our strategic objectives in two of our operational theaters and require your approval to proceed.”

Kylo looked up, shocked that Hux would tell the Supreme Leader where his attention was needed.

“Which objectives?”

Hux looked cursorily at his datapad. It was displaying a screensaver. “First, the control over tariffs and travel in the Celanon Spur. To accomplish this we must move troops from our staging in Axxila to the port of Celanon. Second, the achievement of of intragalactic supremacy in the Meridian Sector. For this we will need to upgrade the existing Imperial radar picket system. The third objective is the same as the second, but in the Vorzyd Sector. If you approve my recommendations, we can proceed immediately and obtain a result within three days.”

But Snoke was looking off into the distance, away from Hux. “No,” he said. “I do not approve. You will proceed with nothing until Luke Skywalker is found.”

Kylo heard Hux’s sniff of offended surprise, and would have smiled at it if his helmet had been on.

“Supreme Leader,” said Hux. “With all due respect, the shortest timeline for finding Luke Skywalker is five weeks. The maximum timeline for achieving the three strategic objectives I have stated, which are central to our military posture, is three days. In the interest of efficiency, I must ask you to decide again.”

“I do not contradict myself, General,” said Snoke, moved enough that he raised his voice. “Skywalker is the highest priority. The only priority. See that your people are made aware. Perhaps freeing them from other duties will accelerate your search.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” said Hux, careful to keep his irritation out of his reply. But Kylo felt it steaming off of his mind, central to his closely-guarded secret. Hux’s anger at Snoke was long-held and intense enough that it was incoherent. It offended Kylo as much as it pleased him. He had not expected to leave this encounter in better favor than Hux.

“Luke Skywalker will be yours, Supreme Leader,” said Kylo, and lifted his head in time to see pride on Snoke’s face. “I will see it done.”

He felt, rather than saw, that Hux rolled his eyes on their way out of the room.

“Tomorrow,” said Kylo, “I will be leaving the base. I need solitude to --”

“Very well, you wouldn’t want to bore anyone with the details,” said Hux, and turned sharply away from the door.

 

* * *

 

Kylo departed early in the morning. He took a single-seat snow-speeder, a ruggedized outdoor datapad, and a hard and soft case survival kit. He needed to be away from the base to truly concentrate, to be aware of nothing but the profound darkness in the Force, to find Skywalker without distraction.

The Starkiller Project had been carved into a freezing, heavy planet whose only resources were snow and buried oil shale. It was cold, geographically monotonous, oxygen poor, and hostile to life. General Hux had chosen it as his project’s staging point, probably because he recognized so many of the planet’s qualities in himself. Kylo hated it.

Two hours on the snow-speeder took him to a remote peak. The snow was fine and dry, and shifted in the thin air like dust. The First Order was far below him, as it should be, and clarity of thought came easily at last.

He had only one objective: Luke Skywalker, who thought he would be Ben Solo’s beloved uncle. Who thought that the order of the Jedi would be easily restored.

“When a person chooses a right action,” Skywalker had told him once, “especially when the alternatives are easier, they are being moved by the light. And there will always be people who do the right thing.”

Ben Solo had taken comfort in those words, had fallen asleep to them when he closed his eyes and found that fear, meaninglessness and doubt were waiting for him. The light’s power was fiction, in the end. The universe was too vast for the simplicity of Skywalker’s philosophy.

It was also proving too vast to find him.

Kylo knew how to manipulate the Force. He was trained well in the arts of finding and taking information. Anything with a mind was open to him.

Still, after three days he had exhausted every method he knew.

Supreme Leader Snoke found him then, cross-legged in the snow, and his cold whisper filled Kylo’s mind.

 _Find him, Kylo Ren_ , said Snoke, loud enough that Kylo bent his head. _After everything I have taught you, and after all that you owe to me, do not fail out of pride._

After that he was gone, leaving Kylo’s mind as easily as he had cut into it, and his apprentice was alone again.

He was not going to find Skywalker, it was clear, with simple persistence. Which meant he would not succeed alone. He shivered, for the first time in three days, with hatred, and returned to the base, where he was told that General Hux was aboard the _Finalizer_ on an undisclosed course.

Kylo met them in four days. General Hux, bound by courtesy but clearly annoyed, greeted him in the docking bay.

“Lord Ren,” he said. “Welcome aboard. Is every other channel of communication broken?”

“I have to speak with you,” said Kylo, ignoring his greeting.

Hux looked, if possible, even more annoyed. “Urgently?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, the pilots’ ready room should accommodate us. Will you go there with me directly, or do you need time to prepare your slides?”

Kylo lifted his head. “As I said, the matter is urgent.”

The TIE pilots’ primary ready room was two decks above the docking bay. It was like a classroom, with a bolted lectern and projection transparisteel in the front, and the rest filled with comfortable chairs labeled by rank.

General Hux, to Kylo’s private but extreme amusement, sat down in the chair labeled ADMIN. Kylo found he was unwilling to make the same choice, and stood beside the lectern.

“Well, Ren, you have my total attention.”

“Tell me your course.”

“That is special information,” Hux replied. “If you were to entitled to know it, you already would.”

Kylo took a step forward. “Nothing is secret from me. The idea is stupid. I could take it from your mind; it would be easy for me. But it would take time, so if you want this discussion to be fast, you should tell me right now. Aren’t you on watch? I know you don’t want to neglect your duty.”

Hux laughed at him, and Kylo had the familiar feeling that something military had escaped his understanding. “I do not stand watches aboard this ship,” he said.

“I don’t care what you do. What is your course, General?”

Hux did not argue again. “Our course,” he said, his voice slow with the weight of his smugness, “is 22.4 degrees.”

Kylo put his hand on his lightsaber. “Tell me where the ship is going.”

“Our _destination_ is a planet called Lothal, where there are intact archives of Imperial census and transportation data.”

“Then you haven’t made much progress.”

“And how much progress have you made?”

Kylo drew a hard breath. “The consequences of disappointing Snoke are worse than you can imagine, but I will survive his displeasure. You will not.”

“That is why we are going to Lothal.”

“If the Supreme Leader chooses to execute you, I will not stand in his way.”

Hux’s discomfort filled the room, certain that Kylo was onto something. It was as obvious as a dramatic change in the temperature. “I never expected more of you. However, that does not explain what you are doing aboard this ship.”

“I’m going to help you,” said Kylo.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Our chances of finding Skywalker are better if we choose one approach,” he said, his voice reasonable but magnified by the mask. “You must know that. If you can find his friends, I will interrogate them.”

Hux narrowed his eyes, but Kylo knew he was going to agree before he did. “Very well. The _Finalizer_ and her crew are engaged on this operation until it is complete. Are you prepared for that duration?”

“I hope your crew will be efficient, General. I have other work.”

“My men and women are always efficient,” said Hux. 

“We will see.”

Hux stood up, ready with a retort. “Do you sleep, Ren? The personnel office can give you a stateroom. And have yourself entered into the mess. If that is all, as you said before, I do not want to be derelict in my duty.”

 

* * *

 

It took ten minutes for the air wing commander to delegate the transfer of his stateroom to Kylo Ren. The pilot he sent to clear his belongings wore her helmet, but Kylo read her resentment easily. The stormtroopers and pilots were ardently loyal to their officers. It made their commitment to the First Order look superficial by comparison.

The room was alarmingly small, made of the same dark, clear-coated plastisteel that covered all the ship’s walls, patterned to lessen their weight. A thick rope of cables traveled from one wall to the other, bolted neatly to the ceiling. The _Finalizer_ had seen ten years of service in the First Order. It was the best of the Star Destroyer class, designed by geniuses of the Empire’s fleet. Even so, the master of the Knights of Ren, apprentice and iron fist of Supreme Leader Snoke, was given a cell without enough space to power his lightsaber. There was barely enough room to turn around.

Was he worth so little? He sat on the bed and focused his emotion, reaching through the minds of the crew in the name of the Supreme Leader.

Captain Phasma was on the flight deck, resenting Kylo Ren. General Hux was on the flag bridge, resenting the Supreme Leader. Among the First Order there was always resentment. The heirs of the Empire were all reduced, harried, and parched for the glory that had shaken the galaxy in old days. It was as familiar from Phasma and Hux as an old book, so Kylo turned his attention from them.

The stormtroopers were unlike the officers and architects of the First Order, who knew where they had come from, who carried with them remembered horizons and foreign suns, cities and classrooms and places they had been caught in the rain. The stormtroopers had no such terrestrial connections. Their earliest memories were of brutally-designed ships and operating bases. Even their aspirations were the same, all envisioned inside the dark, gleaming walls of the First Order.

The room really was too small.

An unwanted memory shook itself loose, a memory from Ben Solo’s early childhood. A trip he had taken with his parents that involved travel aboard a commercial ship. His father made him get down from his shoulders to duck through the door to their cabin.

“This is for a family?” Leia was incredulous. “There’s barely enough room for my hair.”

“If you think this is small,” said Han Solo.

“Are you going to say,” said Leia, shooting him a grin, “then I should see your--”

“Don’t corrupt him before he’s talking. What I was going to say is, ship before the Millenium Falcon. Little wastebasket, basically, kind of flopping around in space, and I’m sharing this place with a Wookiee. Not a ship you want to live in. I was sleeping in the cockpit, under the control panel. No refreshers, either, and remember there’s this Wookiee.”

“What’s your point?” said Leia.

“My point is, if you want a more comfortable ride, steal a bigger ship. That’s what I did.”

Kylo imagined sealing the scene up like spent ammunition casings, jettisoned below the ship to be incinerated by the engines. His memory had always been too good.

He fell asleep and was woken up abruptly by the cold intrusion of Supreme Leader Snoke in his mind.

 _Kylo Ren_. Snoke’s voice was too loud, as always, but inflected with gentleness. _Your old memories are lies. The Jedi tried to use you, but you were smarter than they knew. If you want to be free of the past and know greatness in the future, you will bring me Luke Skywalker._

And then Snoke left him alone.

Kylo sat up and found he could not tell the time. The clock in his room was a 24-hour analog dial, which he had never learned to read. The room was still too small.

He left and found Hux in the senior officers’ wardroom, drinking with three of the flight officers. He looked at their minds. They were unhappy, exhausted and trapped until Hux decided to leave.

“Ren,” said Hux. “I don’t think I invited you in.”

The flight officers tried subtly to be still, like prey animals who thought they were just out of reach.

“What time is it?” Kylo asked.

Hux looked at his watch, taking longer than was necessary to read a digital display, and pulled his sleeve back over it when he was finished. He looked up at Kylo and said, “Late.”

“You can leave,” said Kylo to the flight officers.

They looked to Hux, who waved them off with two fingers of his free hand, and they departed as quickly as was proper.

“In the days of the Empire,” said Hux, and Kylo realized how changed his voice was, quiet and imprecise and offhand, “you would have had to chase the steward out as well. There were robust values of civility, even in wartime, and a wardroom was never empty.”

“Those pilots were embarrassed for you. I felt it.”

“Oh please,” said Hux, standing, and crossed the room to the liquor cabinet, bringing his empty glass with him. “There is only one embarrassment in this room. Can you read?”

“What do you think?” Kylo pulled a chair out and sat with his elbows on his knees. Hux was pouring them identical straight-sided glasses of Nabooian whisky, finished with a quick pour of still water. Kylo did not need to expend any effort to know that he did not choose according to his own taste. He was only mimicking the actions of those he admired.

“That sign on the wall, then, the one that says, ‘Remove Your Helmet,’ what do you make of it?”

“This ship’s regulations don’t apply to me.”

Hux put the glasses down on the table and moved his chair to increase the distance between them. “It was just advice, but don’t worry, I can always have someone bring you a straw.”

Kylo held his helmet together with the faceplate and removed both at once. In the quiet room, he could hear the sound of the padded lining dragging on his hair.

Hux broke the silence with a fast exhalation. “There,” he said, looking away from Kylo’s face.

“Be careful,” said Kylo. “You can’t afford to be distracted. I meant what I said. The Supreme Leader will not tolerate your failure.”

“Are you implying that one glimpse of your _head_ will cause Luke Skywalker to slip through my fingers? I knew you were vain, but apparently I underestimated the scale.”

“That isn’t what I mean. You know that,” said Kylo, looking at the glass in Hux’s hand until his meaning was clear. “How do you justify the expense?”

Hux lifted his eyebrows very slightly. “You think this is a luxury? We sell it, Ren. You have an innocent notion if you think that we fund our government from thin air alone.”

“I would think more about it,” said Kylo, “if I were an accountant.”

Hux ignored him. “There would be no First Order without frailty and compromise. The traffic of death sticks, industrial material, weapons parts and contraband luxuries from the old Empire, as well as the theft of financial instruments -- this galaxy’s weakness funds our work. Every stitch of clothing you wear can trace its purchase to an ugly transaction on some rough backwater. Do you think Supreme Leader Snoke knows that? Maybe he thinks the Force provides according to our needs. But this is a regime, not an allegory.”

“Control yourself,” said Kylo. “You insult the Supreme Leader.”

Hux laughed. There was something he wanted to say to Kylo, the secret so distracting that it had become tantalizing. “We are far from his hearing.”

“But well within mine.”

“He reads your mind? How tedious for him.”

“My mind is open to him, so far as it will not interfere with his own abilities.”

Hux rested his hand on the table. His glass was dull and smudged from the heat of his hand, the little remaining whisky flickering in the light. “What,” he said, “could that _possibly_ mean?”

“I have privacy. Snoke is a wise man. He told me that some things are pointless to observe.”

Hux leaned back in his chair, incredulous. He was more interested than Kylo expected. “How very virtuous of him.”

“I came to warn you, and you haven’t listened,” said Kylo, standing up. He left his untouched glass on the table, shaking with his sudden movement. “I’ll be in my room. When you need me, you can find me.”

“Aboard a ship,” said Hux to his departing back, and Kylo heard him pick up the glass with a frustrated motion, “one says ‘berth.’”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...... u h m i am sorry about this fanfiction. there is more tk, much more. I don't really have any notes other than that it was hard to type "transparisteel" and the reason Nabooian whisky is contraband is because it doesn't meet the Republic's export standards for galactic corn-equivalent content. hux's entire social life is getting drunk with people who are sick of him.
> 
> Also, in this AU Kylo can't tell time on an analog clock because it's never come up. the finalizer has them because it's cheaper than syncing every clock to an illegal radio signal, or like, for the Look.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kylo and hux smooch and then they try to have sex, while plotting! practice makes perfect i guess. 
> 
> warning for one (1) dick out, Chewbacca showing up, canon divergence, laundry crimes, and kissing as Predator would probably describe it if he absolutely had to

 The _Finalizer_ drifted at a close distance outside Lothal’s orbit while a small team of stormtroopers was dispatched to the ministerial building.

Kylo had been invited to observe from the operations room. Hux stood behind four of his officers and watched a holo feed from a helmet camera. From the narrow scope of the camera, they could discern that Lothal’s capital city was cold, foggy, and covered in moss. The climate had brought down some of the Imperial buildings quickly, and the stormtroopers picked their way through rubble.

The officers in the operations room had muted audio and were mostly ignoring the video feed, focused instead on an array of position indicators and radar sweeps.

“It’ll rain in about three hours,” said one of the officers.

“Three and a half,” said another.

Hux looked up from his datapad. “Better not rush them,” he said. “But if they take those disks out into the rain, I promise their transport back to the ship won’t have any oxygen.”

The stormtroopers had made it inside the building. The cameras split up, and twenty minutes passed in dull silence.

“He just passed a directory,” Kylo spoke up, impatient with the silence and the inefficient progress. “You should have told them what they’re looking for, General. Or gone yourself.”

Hux turned his head so that Kylo knew he was being ignored, and leaned down to speak to one of the officers. “Tell him I want to see three racks to the left, and give us time to read.”

The officer leaned into a microphone.

“Three racks to your left, if you please,” he said. “Get close and count from fifty.”

A full minute later, the camera moved. When the feed lingered on a rack of data storage, Kylo saw that they were looking at alphabetized family names.

“Tell him to hold still,” said Hux.

“Hold still,” said the officer into the microphone.

After an excruciating silence, the feed stilled.

“Now tell him to take three names. Lieutenant, what’s on either side alphabetically?”

“Skywaker and Skyward, sir.”

“Those, then,” said Hux, and looked back at his datapad.

“New instructions,” said the lieutenant into the microphone. “Clear out the following three buckets: Skywaker, Skywalker, and Skyward.

“I didn’t quite hear you,” the stormtrooper’s voice crackled through the planet’s thick atmosphere. “I see Skywriter, Skywrithe and Skywrither.”

“No,” said the lieutenant. “I’ll read them again. Skywaker, Skywalker, and Skyward.”

“Sorry, sir,” said the stormtrooper. “Signal isn’t great. That’s Sky _waker_ , Skywalker, and Skyward? Skyward’s an empty bucket.”

The officer leaned back from the microphone. “General Hux, sir,” he said. “He says Skyward’s an empty bucket.”

Kylo had reached the limit of his patience. He left the room, and held his palm on the door trigger so it slammed.

Hux came to find him a full watch later.

“I don’t care how many ancient orders you belong to,” he said, letting himself in and closing the door behind him, “if you similarly disrupt a military operation in future, I will have you ejected from this ship and dragged behind it with docking cable.”

“You’re offended,” said Kylo, deliberately calm.

“I’m not offended, and I won’t be ashamed on your behalf. When you are in a privileged space, and with officers, comport yourself appropriately, that’s all I have to say.”

“Don’t think that I’m like you,” said Kylo, the calm deserting him as easily as it had come. “People would have called me _sir_ no matter what life I chose.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Hux, and took a step back toward the door. “The matter is closed, so I’ll say good night. I’m receiving a report tomorrow on the operation on Lothal. I expect you there.”

Kylo stood up, gratified by the way Hux raised his eyes to warily follow the movement.

“You’re afraid of me,” he said, and lifted a hand to test it. Hux flinched, very little, but they both saw it. “You shouldn’t be. I won’t hurt you. But it’s not that, is it?”

“A rhetorical question is a device for speaking to idiots. Say what you have to say.”

Kylo did: “It’s Snoke. You think I’m spying for him.”

“You have already made it plain that you are,” said Hux.

“I expected your lack of faith, but I’m not his spy. Not intentionally.”

“Your intentions don’t matter, not to him and least of all to me.”

“I wish you could understand,” Kylo said, his anger fueling a cold sincerity. He pitied Hux for his small-mindedness and wanted him to feel it before he retreated, ashamed, from Kylo’s room. “But no one can. You can’t know the size of the universe, or the power of darkness. You can’t know how much we destroy by resisting it.”

Hux stood his ground, albeit a few inches from the door. “And you think Snoke understands? Well, you’re his lackey, you’d believe anything.”

“I'm not, and I’ve told you before not to insult the Supreme Leader in his hearing,” said Kylo, with more urgency. And out of habit, he reached into Hux’s mind.

Hux wanted badly to leave the room. He dwelt on details, many of them about Kylo himself, and the rest -- _he knows, he must know, damn him, he knows already, it will be better to tell him, I can make a good case for it_ \-- did not paint a flattering picture of his loyalty or strength of mind. But the secret was intriguing.

“Whatever it is you think I know,” said Kylo, “I don’t.”

“Then I won’t tell you, Ren.”

“I’m not his spy,” Kylo repeated, affirming it to himself. “He gives me privacy.”

“Yes, I think I know what you mean. Freedom to not _distract_ the Supreme Leader.”

“Yes.”

Hux swallowed, putting slack in his high collar for an instant. “What kind of privacy do you have? Specifically.”

Snoke had an abhorrence of the corporeal, and especially the carnal. Over the years of his training, he had refused to even look at Kylo with his shirt off. But Kylo did not know how to describe the feeling of his teacher recoiling, even light years away, whenever he reached down his trousers at night, and what he said was, “I think even you know what privacy means, General.”

“You’re right, I do, but that won’t make this any more pleasant,” said Hux, squaring his shoulders.

It took him two steps forward and a firm hand around the base of Kylo’s skull to touch their mouths together. Kylo felt his short, decisive exhale, and he parted his lips when Hux did. He knew that in following instead of leading, he showed inexperience and shock, and hated being conscious of it.  

Hux kissed him with what was probably courtesy but absolutely no real interest, enough to just make Kylo’s lower lip wet, and then his mouth was moving against Kylo’s cheek: “Once the Starkiller Project is complete, the First Order will leave Snoke behind and appoint someone else as supreme leader. You have to decide what you will do when it happens.”

Kylo took a step back, and Hux almost lost his balance. “Everyone knows you aren’t loyal,” he said. He didn’t want to know what he looked like, but he felt blood moving in his lips, and the air was cold where his face was wet. His mask was close by, but there was no way to put it on.

Hux met Kylo’s eyes, drawing the back of his hand over his mouth. “A real day for your diary, Ren,” he said, with extra supercilious distance in his voice, even closer to the door than before. “A taste of independence. I truly hope you keep this secret better than you -- well, never mind, it won’t help to dwell on it.”

It took him three quick strides to get out, and he closed the door from the outside.

Kylo worked every day of his adult life to be the master of his own thoughts, and to keep what he had heard secret from Snoke he did not think about it.

Instead, he put two of his ungloved fingers to his lips. They had dried quickly and his face felt normal again. He allowed himself to quickly think that it was absurd for Snoke to be so afraid of an action which had no lasting effect.

 

* * *

 

At the end of the operation they found the names of sixteen pilots and crew who had carried a Skywalker on their manifest in the past thirty years. The information was old. The Republic would have better data, but it was locked away, inside heavy walls and behind unreasonable hypocrisy, out of the First Order’s reach.

Of the sixteen pilots, nine remained living. It took Hux two weeks to collect even one, after the mind-numbing process of location, identification, and retrieval.

He relayed the news of this administrative victory to Kylo in a very nonchalant tone of voice, but this posture was weakened by the fact that he had sought Kylo out to speak with him.

“Ren,” he said, redoubling his attempt to be casual, “you’ve volunteered to retrieve the information, and now you’re up. The pilot is a Wookiee, his name is Chewbacca, and he’s in a secure room, 344-C.”

Kylo did not react to the name except to take one breath and to think that “pilot” was the wrong word. “And where is that?”

“I’ve just said it,” said Hux, already in the doorway. He’d been reluctant to venture more than a step into Kylo’s room since he’d held Kylo’s lower lip in his mouth and told him that he planned to betray Supreme leader Snoke. “It is on the C, or lowest, deck. Even numbers are to port, and odd numbers are to starboard, and I will leave the counting up to you. You will know you’re in the correct place when you find a Wookiee in locked restraints, awaiting torture. When you’ve finished, come and see me.”

The interrogation room on the _Finalizer_ had a loud air-circulation duct and white noise machines along the seams of the door and walls, but Kylo heard the Wookiee’s hard breathing over all of it. He did not look very injured, but he was afraid. His long hair was tangled at his wrists and ankles where he was restrained, but perfectly smooth around his face.

Chewbacca was his father’s oldest friend. He had, a long time ago, been Ben Solo’s only friend. To Kylo Ren he meant nothing, except that he had information Kylo needed and no power to cause him any pain.

He did not remove his helmet.

“We’re looking for Luke Skywalker,” he said. “Where did you take him?”

Chewbacca said nothing, but looked at Kylo so intently that for a moment, he was sure that Chewbacca knew him. It was unlikely. Chewbacca had known another person, a stupid child who had never grown up. And Kylo Ren knew what he looked like, tall and terrifying, like the ancient lords of the dark side of the Force, nothing at all like Ben Solo.

“I’ll give you another chance to tell me, before I take it from you,” he said, moving closer so he was meeting Chewbacca’s bold stare from a higher position. He put a hand on one of the locked cuffs, and saw the Wookiee’s arm twitch away from him.

Chewbacca turned his head. His eyes were deeply set and tilted slightly, so they had always looked very sad when he did not make a conscious expression. It did not stop Kylo from prying out the memory. But in a moment of nauseating weakness, he regretted causing Chewbacca pain.

“There,” he said, and took a step back. “Jakku. That wasn’t so hard.”

Chewbacca closed his eyes tightly, and Kylo should have left before he became weaker than he was. Instead, because he could not help himself, he reached back effortlessly into Chewbacca’s mind for news of Han Solo, and learned that he was still alive.

Chewbacca opened his eyes, alarmed and curious, and lifted his head against the restraints.

He opened his mouth to speak, and Kylo cut him off with the pneumatic hiss of the door.

“Jakku,” he told the stormtroopers who flanked the door. Then, out of even worse weakness, he said: “Bring him back where you found him. Unharmed.”

And then he went to talk to Hux.

 

* * *

 

Hux was in his stateroom as he always was during the second dog watch, wearing every part of his uniform but his gloves. He was waiting at his desk with transparent unease.

“I have to talk to you, which means exactly what you think it does,” said Hux. “Take your clothes off.”

Kylo did nothing more than blink behind his mask. “Why don’t you?”

“Because I’ll be talking,” said Hux, and then he smiled meanly. “And I think we both know what the Supreme Leader considers arousing past the point of endurance.”

“You’re right. It isn’t you,” said Kylo. “Be careful how you speak.”

“If you’d hurry, I won’t have to,” said Hux.

Kylo had little reverence for his body, and a great deal of curiosity about the coming conversation, which he could not even consider when he was alone. He undid his belt, and saw Hux’s look of anxious interest. There was an empty glass on his desk; he’d been working up his nerve.

Kylo set his belt and cloak on the desk, close enough to Hux that he had to move his hand, and reached for the fastening on his tunic.

“And the helmet, Ren,” said Hux. “This isn’t esoteric pornography.”

“Isn’t?”

Hux laughed uncomfortably and reached for his glass. When he noticed that it was empty he put his hand flat on the table.

Kylo set his helmet on top of his cloak. The room was too quiet. “I think you should stand up, at least,” he said.

“Fine. If you can’t do it yourself, I’ll lend you a hand, is that a zipper?”

“There’s an eyelet clasp at the top.”

Hux hit his desk with his hip but came around to stand in front of Kylo without further incident. Kylo felt a surprising but sincere excitement watching Hux fiddle with the clasp. Up close, his hands were pale and gently articulated, and his breath was warm on Kylo’s jaw. It was surprising that he was so clumsy with the eyelet. He almost bent the hook twice before he slid it out and found the zipper pull.

Hux’s brows were drawn together like he was witnessing a sloppy salute. “Just as we wanted,” he said, and pulled the zipper down rapidly so the plackets of Kylo’s tunic parted, “arousing past the point of endurance.”

“We can’t stop,” said Kylo. “If you were thinking of backing out.”

“I’m only thinking that your outfit is stranger than I expected. Let’s keep it moving,” said Hux, and crisply pulled the tunic apart. When Kylo moved his shoulders to get out of his sleeves and suspenders, Hux held onto his torso and tried to steer him to the bed. It took them three awkward steps, and Kylo let himself fall back onto the mattress, his knees bent and his feet still on the floor.

Kylo swallowed. People did this every day, only in different circumstances, and usually with real affection, but still, they did it every day. Hux rolled his eyes halfway and knelt on top of him. The bed creaked. “You can start talking,” Kylo said, to keep them focused.

“I told you recently that the First Order plans to replace Snoke, and now I am authorized to tell you more,” he said, and in a surprisingly inspired gesture he ran his hand lightly from Kylo’s collarbone to his navel and back up again, lingering with genuine interest on the outline of Kylo’s pectoral muscles. The attention was flattering, and Kylo’s first instinct was to tighten those muscles and his upper arms. He had to remind himself that there was no one in the room worth impressing. “We will appoint a new supreme leader, but not to serve out a full term.”

“Why not?” Kylo asked. Hux was practically sitting on him, and Kylo felt his erection brush against him. He had not experienced that sort of physical reaction yet, maybe because the situation was so strange, but he could feel his heart beating hard. When he lifted his head, he could see it jarring the fabric of his shirt.

Hux sighed, his hands still on Kylo’s chest. “The First Order was never meant to have a supreme leader forever -- just for a little while, at the beginning, a central executive to bring the government together, and then the military and political structure would obviate the need for the role. Snoke was already old when he was elected, and it’s been more than thirty years -- no one’s patience is limitless.”

“So the next supreme leader will, what,” Kylo stopped talking. His cock was hard, because another man was stroking his chest and sitting on his pelvis. People did this all the time, he thought again, and it turned out that even he, trained in denial and driven by purpose, was just like the rest of them.

“He will step down,” said Hux, and drew one leg up and over Kylo so he was entirely on one side of the bed. His knee brushed Kylo’s crotch. The erection only continued growing. “I’m going to take your pants off. Somehow.”

“How will you know that the replacement will step down?” Kylo lifted his head to watch Hux, who was hard at work on the simple snap and zipper at the front of his trousers. He wondered how often the general got around to taking off someone else’s clothes.

“Your point is valid. There’s no mechanism in our government to remove someone from that office. But the appointment will follow a very clear demonstration of the First Order’s wishes. So, at the end of the day, in the most simple terms, all we can do is choose someone who isn’t a complete moron.”

“You’re going to kill Snoke.”

Hux had resumed his previous posture our of frustration with the change, knees planted on either side of Kylo’s hips, and he had the snap open and his fingers on the zipper pull when he shrugged. “Of course, are you a child?” he said, and tugged Kylo’s underwear down. He froze, and was silent for a long time. “Well,” he said, staring at Kylo’s penis, “that was a poorly-timed remark.”

Kylo ignored him and tried to concentrate on the facts. “And you think you are the one to replace him?”

Hux rubbed his hands together to warm them before he reached down. Kylo had never had another person’s hand on his cock. His erection twitched, as violently as he used the rest of his body, and Hux flinched to the side like it was capable of injuring him. “Of course not,” he said. “I’m only a military officer, and have no political aspirations.”

Kylo stared at him.

“At this time,” Hux continued. “Despite your many flaws, Ren, you are in fact the more desirable candidate.”

“Me.”

Hux leaned in very close, his left hand still around Kylo’s cock and his right forearm braced on the hard mattress. “You know how life is, the apprentice must one day overtake the master. How do you like the sound of Supreme Leader Ren?”

Kylo came with no warning and surprising speed. Hux threw himself backwards with a startled shout, a hand coming up to protect his eyes, and almost fell onto the floor.

“You son of a bitch,” Hux hissed, standing up and staring down at the stain on his uniform jacket.

Kylo closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, trying to breathe like he hadn’t sprinted a mile in low oxygen. Hux was unfastening his collar, red-faced and humiliated.

He felt compelled to say something, but not an apology, and gestured at Hux’s own erection. “Do you want --”

“I’ll take care of it,” Hux snapped. “Now, answer me, yes or no.”

Kylo considered it. There was a vicious, inevitable logic to the plan that suited everything he had been taught. It was, he knew, the one remaining way to overcome his weak sentimentality, to which he had succumbed so recently. It would have always come to this, no matter what. “Yes,” he said.

“Fine,” said Hux. “Good. Get out.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANYWAY....
> 
> 1\. kylo is tortured because it takes hux six weeks to do anything 
> 
> 2\. hux thinks kylo is in skull and bones (hes not)
> 
> 3\. also thinks kylo keeps a diary (he doesn't)
> 
> 4\. chewbacca to han later: idk he seemed fine....tall, yeah....no i'm very sure he's still a virgin, like 100%
> 
> 5\. later hux is in the laundry room like "i need to get a protein stain out of gaberwool ......no it's.......................blood.........."


End file.
